Don’t go changing to try to please them…

Awhile back I did a little series of blogs around don Miquel Ruiz’s Four Agreements. I took each agreement and kind of fleshed it out as I see it. The third agreement, ‘do not make assumptions,’ keeps coming up for me so as always, I take that stuff as a sign and figured I needed to talk about it again.
This morning a teacher of mine wrote about animals, rescue animals specifically, and how we assume we know what they’re feeling based on the circumstances we know about their lives. For example, we know a dog was abused so we assume they are frightened. Or we know a dog was left alone all day so we assume they have separation anxiety. The problem with that is most of us never actually ask the dog. Again, we’re just assuming.
So also this morning, I read my nephew’s dog. He rescued this girl about a month ago and she acts like a pretty scared little pup so, of course, we all assumed that’s what’s going on with her. But that’s not at all what the dog conveyed to me. We assumed incorrectly. When I met her last night, she was definitely acting kind of fearful, but I had this feeling something else was going on. And I was right. She gave me something completely different than what we assumed. And here’s the thing.
When we assume anything, we change our behavior based on that assumption.
And it’s not just about animals. I was talking to a friend yesterday about how it feels when someone cuts us down, or disrespects us, or tries to make us feel crappy about ourselves. What happens when we run in to that? We assume that we are the bad ones. We assume that what someone else says it true. We assume that we’re the ones that need to change…so we do.
We spend a whole lot of time assuming things about the animals, people, and situations around us. Then we spend a whole lot of time changing our behavior to accommodate them only to find out that our assumption was just that, an assumption, and not a correct one. And that our time would have been better spent just communicating with the animal or person, or about the situation and then taking the RIGHT action or even no action. So, until you know what’s actually going on…
Don’t go changing to try to please them…
 
In Munay…